Ireland

Asked in 2008 for his favourite piece of business advice, Conor Foley, chief executive of the spreadbetting group Worldspreads, replied: “Look after the downside and the upside will look after itself.” Four years later, the failure of Mr Foley’s company to “look after the downside” has left it in the hands of administrators from KPMG, who are faced with a £13m gap between the company’s cash balance and the amount that it owes clients, the Financial Times reported. The company’s demise happened quickly. Mr Foley and Niall O’Kelly, financial director, resigned abruptly on March 14.

Residential property prices fell by almost 18 per cent in the year to February, new data from the Central Statistics Office showed today, the Irish Times reported. Over the month, prices were 2.2 per cent lower than in January. The decline of 17.8 per cent showed an increase in the pace of decline from the previous month, when the annual decline registered 17.4 per cent, and the monthly decline was 1.9 per cent. In Dublin, property prices were 20.3 per cent lower year-on-year, and 1.2 per cent down on the month.

The Central Bank has unveiled plans to strengthen how it protects client assets after a new report into its handling of failed Dublin investment firm Custom House Capital criticised its inspections of the firm, finding that the regulator lacked sufficient powers, the Irish Times reported. The report, by two of the Central Bank’s risk advisers, found that the regulator would have preferred to change senior management at the firm but only had the power to either withdraw its authorisation or put the company into liquidation.

As slogans go, “restructure the promissory-notes repayment schedule” doesn’t have quite the same tub-thumping ring as “burn the bondholders”. But as Ireland has moved from the anger to the bargaining stage of economic grief, it has realised that coming to a deal over €31 billion ($41 billion) in promissory notes which the government issued to two failing banks is more important than defaulting on their remaining unsecured bondholders, The Economist reported. In 2008 Ireland’s previous government said it would stand behind the debts of the country’s tottering banks.

Treasury Holdings has been given leave to seek a judicial review of Nama's decision to call in its loans and appoint a receiver to various assets, the Irish Times reported. The group has overall debt of some €2.7 billion and Nama acquired some €1.7 billion of its loans in 2010. While granting leave today to Treasury to bring the case, Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan stressed she was not expressing any definite view on the legal and factual issues raised by the group, other than that it had met the necessary threshold of raising "substantial" issues to be tried.

The Governor of the Central Bank Patrick Honohan will probably ask the European Central Bank Governing Council tomorrow for permission to delay a cash payment on the Anglo Irish promissory note due at the end of this month, according to the Bloomberg news agency, the Irish Times reported. Mr Honohan will ask for the delay to ease the debt burden on the State. The State is due to make a €3.1 billion payment to the former Anglo Irish Bank, which is then supposed to use the funds to reduce its emergency borrowings from the Central Bank.

Nortel Networks Inc, a former telecoms company that is liquidating in bankruptcy, won a dismissal of some claims by European affiliates that were seeking a large chunk of the company's $9 billion cash pile, Reuters reported. Nortel's British, Irish and French affiliates had sought more than $3 billion, claiming Nortel Networks Inc has breached its fiduciary duties to the European businesses by stripping them of cash and leaving them insolvent. A Delaware bankruptcy court dismissed those claims in part because Nortel Networks, or NNI, was not a director of the European affiliates.

The chairman of NAMA says it can avoid making a loss over its lifetime, but admits there is little chance of recovering the face value of loans held by the agency, Independent.ie reported. Frank Daly yesterday said he was confident NAMA would recover the €31bn it paid banks for property loans, plus the cost of running the agency, over its 10-year lifetime. Mr Daly and NAMA chief executive Brendan McDonagh were addressing a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform.

Property prices have fallen by 68 per cent since their peak, significantly more than official figures suggest, a new report said today, the Irish Times reported. Tough credit conditions, an oversupply of housing and weak domestic demand have weighed on the residential property market in recent months, while a lack of transparency has helped draw out the property crash. The report from Goodbody Stockbrokers shows property has fallen by 68 per cent from peak asking prices, based on property prices recently achieved at Allsop Space auctions.

Senior Government figures, including Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore and Minister for Finance Michael Noonan, have urged caution about any early breakthrough with the troika over improving the terms of the €30 billion promissory note for the former Anglo Irish Bank, the Irish Times reported. Yesterday, Mr Gilmore, Mr Noonan and Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte separately confirmed progress has been made with the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF, but all dampened expectations about new terms being agreed in the immediate future.